Theodore Bikel, the actor who was best known as an actor but also recorded numerous folk albums and was a co-founder of the Newport Folk Festival, died of natural causes on Tuesday at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 91.
Bikel was born in Vienna, Austria but his family fled to Mandatory Palestine in 1938 as the Nazi’s came into the country. He started acting in his teens and in 1945, moved to London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
In 1948, he was recommended to Laurence Olivier by Michael Redgrave to study for the parts of Stanley Kowalski and Mitch in the London production of A Streetcar Named Desire where he eventually took over the lead role opposite Vivien Leigh.
He moved into film in 1951 with the part of a German officer in The African Queen and was later nominated for an Academy Award for playing a southern sheriff in The Defiant Ones. He went on to roles in The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, My Fair Lady, I Want to Live! and, in one of his most bizarre undertaking, Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels.
His Broadway debut was in 1955 and he was nominated for a Tony in 1958 for The Rope Dancers, but his most enduring roles came in musicals. In 1959, he created the role of Captain von Trapp in the original production of The Sound of Music on Broadway and, although he never played the role on the Great White Way, he is considered the actor that has played the most performances in the role of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.
As a singer, Bikel recorded his first album, Folk Songs For Israel, for Elektra Records in 1955. Oer his career, he would record over twenty albums including additional ones concentrating on Israeli folk music, along with the folk songs of other countries and two live albums.
In 1959, Bikel, Pete Seeger, Oscar Brand, George Wein and Harold Leventhal created the Newport Folk Festival which continues to this day. In 1963, he performed with Bob Dylan, whom he greatly admired, Seeger, Peter Paul and Mary and Joan Baez at the festival.
He and Seeger, however, did not always see eye-to-eye on the festival’s performers. One year, Bikel had to stop Seeger from using an Ax to cut the wires to the main stage when Pete objected to the music being played by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
Bikel is also said to be only the second person to perform Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind in public.
Theodore was also very active politically, something he learned from his father who was an active Zionist. He co-founded the Actor’s Federal Credit Union in 1962 and was later president of Actor’s Equity (1977-82). He performed numerous times at fundraisers for civil and human rights movements.
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